Children

“Infants, children, and adolescents comprise 40% of the world’s population. In crucial respects (e.g., ability to control their environment, ability to care for and defend themselves), they are the most vulnerable group. Mortality from childhood cancers has dropped dramatically since 1975 due to vastly improved treatments that have resulted from high levels of participation by children in cancer treatment clinical trials. Yet over the same period (1975 – 2006), cancer incidence in U.S. children under 20 years of age has increased.

The causes of this increase are not known, but … the changes have been too rapid to be of genetic origin. Nor can these increases be explained by the advent of better diagnostic techniques such as computed tomography [CT] and magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]. Increased incidence due to better diagnosis might be expected to cause a one-time spike in rates, but not the steady increases that have occurred in these cancers over a 30-year span. The extent to which environmental exposures are responsible for this trend remains to be determined.”

Children are at special risk due to their smaller body mass and rapid physical development, both of which magnify their vulnerability to known or suspected carcinogens, including radiation. Numerous environmental contaminants can cross the placental barrier; to a disturbing extent, babies are born “pre-polluted.” Children also can be harmed by genetic or other damage resulting from environmental exposures sustained by the mother (and in some cases, the father). There is a critical lack of knowledge and appreciation of environmental threats to children’s health and a severe shortage of researchers and clinicians trained in children’s environmental health.

Health is normal. The human body is a self-repairing, self-defending, and self-healing marvel. Disease is relatively difficult to induce, considering the body’s powerful immune system. However, this complicated and delicate machinery can be damaged if fed the wrong fuel during the formative years. The chronic diseases commonly associated with aging — hypertension, coronary artery disesase, Type II diabetes, degenerative joint disease, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, as well as most cancers — are not the inevitable outcome of the aging process; they are born out of wrong food choices earlier in life.

Healthy living with nutritional excellence throughout life can slow the decline of aging. It can prevent the years and years of suffering in ill health that is so common today as people get older and become dependent on medical treatments, drugs, and surgery. Medical intervention does very little to slow the progression of illnesses and gradual mental and physical decline. Nutritional excellence is the only real fountain of youth.”